AIBU to just let DD go to school with earrings in.

[PinkChaires]

School starts tomorrow and DD is saying that she will go to school her earrings in (not allowed). Now i dont agree that earrings shouldnt be allowed however they are the school rules. Ive said to her health and safety but she says that 1) my earrings are small and screw on- there is no chance of them falling off or getting caught on something. Tbh shes right- shes worn these earring from nursery right through primary school and there has never been an issue. 2) if its health and safety concerns why are the teachers wearing earrings. Shes right on this to- in events and parents evenings ive seen the teachers wear earrings/jewellery. Shes gotten phone calls home about this and got shouted at by the school but she says to me ' its a bit hard to take them seriously about the danger of earrings when they have like 5 earrings as well'. I cant get hett up about her wearing the earrings to school. Shes doing amazing in all other areas of school so far and this seems like a pointless rule
AIBU?

Just parent your kid rather than inconveniencing the teachers.

I heard the teachers in my DD’s school are allowed to drink wine at home but apparently that’s a “health risk” for the children!

YABU and you know it. Take them out and let the teachers get on with their actual jobs instead of dealing with shit like this because you don’t want to.

Once they get to year 10 there's very little a parent can do if their kid is a shit.

Speak for yourself.

Btw schools have to manage the behaviour of 1000+ teenagers in crowded conditions from very different backgrounds and manage to give those kids an education.

What seem like petty rules to you are the backbone of creating a culture in which kids can actually learn because they have accepted some common, simple boundaries and respect for the culture of the school.

If you can't even get one child, your own child, to follow a simple instruction then imagine the challenge of getting over a thousand of them to follow rules that will keep them safe and allow others to learn even if they don't want to themselves and tell you, 'their parents don't give a shit either'?

Well researched strategies and systems are put in place and it turns out, mad or not in my or your opinion, that getting kids to accept and adhere to low level simple rules of conformity such as uniform are key. You might want to also consider that if your dd is being sent to the pastoral office to sort out the fact she's wearing earrings again and has already been warned and now has to do x, y or z, she is NOT in her lesson learning as she is meant to be. She may well have also robbed her whole class of five minutes learning whilst the teacher 'persuaded' her that yes she really did have to go to the pastoral office seeing as she'd chosen to disregard the rules again and no we don't have time during our maths lesson for a one on one argument about whether she should have to follow rules or not because there are 29 (or god forbid 32) other kids in that room whose parents have sent them into school to get an education not listen to this.

If you deal with it at home it is just you who has to waste your time arguing and enforcing - if you say, 'let the school deal with it' because I can't be bothered then it impacts on a lot of people including the the kids of the parents who could be bothered having that battle at home out of consideration for the rest of the community.

If you hate the rule then complain about it, talk to other parents, write to the board of governors etc. At my school they're allowed one plain stud in each ear and one small nose stud. So there's your first argument for your case: many schools allow..... can I ask why you don't follow a similar policy? Petition, lots of emails from parents etc. The, 'this is a stupid rule', is a red herring because you could challenge the rule constructively in an adult way.

It's completely different for adults / teachers. I expect they're allowed to wear high heels too.
You're sending a terrible message to your daughter about respect for authority and knowing how to behave appropriately but then I suppose if you're the kind of person who pierced your toddlers ears then you're the kind of person who doesn't care about things like that.

By the time your kids are in year 10 you have no control over them? This is not a normal attitude and there would be no such thing as society if this was true.

Even if your only means of control is well it's up to you but if you leave with those earrings you'll be coming home to no wifi/playstation/phone it's still some control. It won't take long to re-establish the balance and whilst it will be uncomfortable briefly your relationship and their education and chances for coping with all the annoying rules and regulations that life throws at us will be vastly improved.

How do you think we run schools if there's no way to influence year 10s? We have far less leverage than you and are working at a ratio of 1:30. Come on!

I'm so glad I don't have to teach your daughter. Rule breaking kids I can cope with. The entitled 'Why shouldn't dear little Snuggles wear her earrings if she wants to, waah!' parents are a royal PITA.

Oddly we're allowed to wear high heels (I see the odd colleague tottering up and down stairs in scarily high ones) but not peep toe shoes even if we don't work in food and tech or science etc which would make sense of why a glimpse of bare toe might be dangerous. We're allowed to wear skirts to the knee yet not allowed to wear capri trousers and can wear skirts or trousers but not cullotes (sorry I cannot spell that word and acknowledge I cba to look it up).

We have our own dress codes with inconsistencies and, 'wtf is the point of that' elements to moan about but get on with.

Most workers do - it's one of those things you have to deal with. Even lifetime benefit claimants now have to jump through hoops and attend pointless meetings etc. Literally there's no way through life without being able to grit your teeth, bite your tongue and put up with it now bar being born rich, winning the lottery or living on criminal gains. Even then you have to do mad shit like sit at a red traffic light at 3am with a clear view of nothing coming in any direction unless you want to be fined.

How can it go so completely over people heads that this is what communities be they schools or international coalitions are built on?

I don't think it's a "hangover" from a previous era. Plain studs were allowed at most secondary schools when I was at school in the 1960s. I went to an independent school with really strict uniform rules, but even we were allowed to wear them.

We had to kneel in the gym or hall on the first day of each term though, while a teacher came round with a yardstick to make sure that our skirts were no more than 2" off the ground!

I had a Y11 student last year persistently wear a nose stud despite being told every lesson to take it out. She refused to have it confiscated. It ended with her destroying the best part of half a lesson in my class as she was told to take it out, proceeded to fiddle with it, dropped it onto the carpet and then spent an age loudly searching for it on the floor while senior leadership took their time to remove her from my class. Half an hour of education destroyed because she wasn't going to follow a simple school rule.

THAT is why those rules are in place. To prevent this kind of thing from happening.

not peep toe shoes even if we don't work in food and tech or science etc which would make sense of why a glimpse of bare toe might be dangerous

800 teenagers not all entirely adjusted to their rapidly increasing skeleton clumping through the corridors at lesson changeover are very hazardous for uncovered toes. I've had quite a few standing on top of my DMs before now completely by accident.

In most schools plain studs are allowed.
So she could take them out and put plain ones in if required.
We don't allow non plain ones because when they come to bits it causes all sorts of hassle.

We actually have more issues with rings, necklaces and hair.

True BUT crowd of teenagers in stairwells during lesson changeover and spike high heels? Seems more terrifying to me or at least equally so.

Anyway point being we all have rules we can pick apart the logic of but have to follow.

But why shouldn't she? What logical reason is there to ban stud earrings?

Because it’s the rule, regardless.

I think quite a few schools are moving over go no earrings at all, probably because it’s easier than policing an ‘earrings of x type only and only one set, and only on days when you don’t have PE or swimming policy’.

plus back in my school days (80s) it used to be that girls could wear earrings and boys couldn’t and that sort of rule is going to cause all kinds of ructions re: sexism and ‘these rules don’t apply to me miss because I’m non binary now’

none at all is the simplest option.

here’s a story from last year: www.itv.com/news/granada/2021-09-21/school-tells-girl-from-huyton-to-remove-earrings-that-make-her-feel-calm

The council can take ages to process these permits though.

It IS up to you. She's your daughter and still a child.
If she wants to hide the earrings and put them in once she's at school, then fine you can't stop her. That's teenage rebellion for you. But you can certainly put your foot down whilst she is in your house, and show a unified approach to school rules. Growing up in my household it would have been you either wear them appropriately at home and take them out for school or they would be taken offyou and returned when you were in sixth form, whether you'd bought them with your own money or inherited them or whatever.

Under 16 the parent has an agreement with the school to adhere to school rules. That your daughter will follow school rules when she attends. That's your contract. Her wearing them to school is as much spitting in your face as it is theirs because she's saying she doesn't care what they think of you, how she reflects on you and the impact she has on your time (through phone calls home etc). I know people will say pick your battles with teenagers, but sometimes if you pick the small ones, you don't need to have the big ones. You're the adult and she is the child, despite her not thinking that. Yr 9/10 is a really tough age and the lessons you teach now will be important ones.

It didn't prevent it though, rule is no nose stud, child still wore nose stud.

No, it didn't prevent it. The point was, the student decided not to follow the rules, the parents were not interested in enforcing it at home and it disrupted the learning of 25 other students for half an hour. Is that acceptable?

How rude. The teachers are adults who are at their place of work. They don't wear school uniform, do they? Your daughter is a pupil. She wears a uniform. Yes, some rules are silly or annoying but them's the breaks. Let your kid wear them to school. She'll get told to take them out and then she'll argue then she'll get a name for being difficult and then you'll come b to complain about stupid rules and then everyone will know that you have a great sense of entitlement and think that you are the arbiter of what rules are important and which aren't. Like, ooh, it's a 30 mph zone, but there's not a single other car on the road so what's wrong with going at 50? Don't be that person, and don't encourage your kid to be either.

This is such good advice. Thank you. My dd is the same age and I am fed up with the attitude and boundary pushing with jewellery - necklace, bracelet and large stud earrings. She also rolls her skirt up, some of the time wears shoes, which aren’t allowed and the wrong PE bottoms. I hasten to add, she only has these shoes because she changed school and they were allowed at her former school. I have also bought the correct shoes along with all the correct PE kit. You have also given me a perfect argument as to why she can’t have a second ear piercing, ie she can’t follow the school rules so why would I allow her to create a potential further situation of not following them - the rule at her school is one small stud btw.

A lot of the girls, including me wore kitten heels to school, made popular by Princess Diana in the early / mid 80s. These often had metal heels.

Haven’t RTFT but the only way this will work is if you accept that them getting lost will be yours and your daughter’s fault. Even then you should really not be wasting staff time with this but as you’re determined to make it their problem, you have to accept the consequences. I say this as I suspect if they do get lost you’ll revert to “but it was a stupid rule!” and blaming the school.

Who’d be a teacher…